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Given by a friend of mine as a birthday present, it is a very thought-provoking book. Gustave La Bon is regarded as the “Father of Crowd Psychology”. I would like to share a few quotes I picked up in reading the book

From another book of Gustave Le Bon – The crowd: A Study of the popular Mind;

It is crowds rather than isolated individuals that may be induced to run the risk of death to secure the triumph of a creed or an idea, that may be fired with enthusiasm for glory and honour… Such heroism is without doubt somewhat unconscious but it is of such heroism that history is made

Table of Contents

  1. The nature of crowds
  2. The role ideas play in influencing crowds
  3. The religious sentiment of crowds
  4. The psychological and emotional benefits one derives from joining a crowd

The Nature of Crowds

A group of individualsa united by a common idea, belief, or ideology. A crowd forms when an influential idea unties a number of individuals and propels them to act towards a common goal.

According to LeBon, when an individual joins a crowd, he ceases to become an individual– “He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will”.

As a part of a crowd, an individual becomes a pawn who sacrifices his personal goals for those of the crowd. “In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degreee that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest”


The role ideas play in influencing crowds

Crowds accept ideas superficially and utilize them as fuel for revoluntionary action. So where does the idea come from? Normally, they comes from people from outside the crowss however, this original idea needs to be sinplfied for the “crowd” to understand. Here are the exact words from LeBon:

“Idea being only accessible to crowds ater having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty philosophical or scentific idea that we see how far-reaching are the modification they require in order to lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds… However great or true an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of almost all that which constituted its elevation and its greatness by the mere fact that it has come within the intellectual range of crowds and exerts an influnce upon them “

Thats when the role of leader comes in as they served to simplfied the master mind and broadcast it to the crowds “The majority of men, especially among the masses, do not possess clear and reasoned ideas on any subject whatever outside their own specialty, The leader serves them as guide “

As LeBon put it “How numerous are the crowds that have heroically faced death for beliefs. ideas, and phrases that they scarcely understood!”. The leader controls the crowds by using this natural froces– “By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers. they evoke grandiose and vague iomages in men’s minds, but this very vagueness that wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power. They are the mysterious divinties hidden behind the tabernacle, which the devout only approach in fear and trembling “

The Religious Sentiment of Crowds

“A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the complete submission of his will, and the whole-souled ardour of fanaticism at the servie of a cause or an inidividual who becomes the goal and guide of his thoughts and actions”

“Were it possible to induce the masses to adopt atheism, disbelief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its eterior forms would soon become a cult”

The morality of crowds can trigger both good and evil acts. Why are crowds immoral?? LeBon puts the following as a reply “.. our savage, destructive instincts are the inheritanve left dormant in all of us from the primitive ages. In the life if the isolated individual it would be dangerous for him to gratify these instincts, while his absorption in an irresponsible crowds, in which in consequence he is assured of impunity, gives him entire liberty to follow them.”

The psychological and emotional benefits one derives from joining a crowd

When an individual lives as an ‘individual’, he is apt to feel a crushing burden and sense of impotence. In joining the crowd, an individual is relieved from impotence. – “In crowds the foolish, ignorant, and envious persons are freed from the sense of their insignificance and powerlessness, and are possessed instead by the notion of brutal and temporary but immense strength”

LeBon thought it is not possible to relieve oneself from a crowd.

  1. As we are all part of a crowd in that we are all motivated by ideas socialised into us
  2. Our actions are motivated by unconscious ideas.
  3. Partial freedom can be attained by bringing to the light of reason these unconscious ideas LeBon wrote “The tyranny exercised unconsciously on men’s mindfs is the only real tyranny, beacuse it cannont be fought against”